To link to the entire object, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed the entire object, paste this HTML in websiteTo link to this page, paste this link in email, IM or documentTo embed this page, paste this HTML in website

■'.
s<".
■^^jj^i. y*e.'mL (\hi)
Social Conditions Among the Negroes in Upper Canada before 1 865
By Fred Landon, M.A.
When the government of the United States emancipated the Negro slaves in the seceded states in 1863, there was instituted a Freedmen's Inquiry Com¬ mission to consider generally what should be done both with slaves who had been freed by the operations of the war and those who should later become free. The members of this commission were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Robert Dale Owen and James Mackay. Dr. Howe, soon after his appointment, visited Upper Canada and later made a report to Secretary of War Stanton1 which presents much information on the condition of the refugees who had entered the British province and were there making their home. His findings were highly favour¬ able to the fugitives and one sentence of the report has been frequently quoted, where, after noting some of the advances made by these people in their new home, he adds: "The refugees earn a living, and gather property; they marry and respect women; they build churches and send their children to schools; they improve in manners and morals—not because they are picked men, but simply because they are free men."
Dr. Howe was deeply impressed with this idea, that it was freedom which improved the Negro. In Canada he found the black man facing severe hard¬ ships in many cases. The climate was harsh as compared with the South, ■ sometimes there was difficulty in making a livelihood, and there was occasional prejudice. On the other hand, there was justice and opportunity and, above all,,freedom. In the preface to his report Dr. Howe says: "When everybody is asking what shall be done with the Negroes—and many are afraid that they cannot take care of themselves if left alone—an account of the manner in which twenty thousand of them are taking care of themselves in Canada may be interesting, even if it be imperfect, and contain superfluous speculations."
Dr. Howe's estimate of the number of Negro refugees in Canada was
=—v between 15,000 and 20,000.2 This is but one of many estimates and it is rather
difficult to arrive at any definite figure. The question is of some interest, how-
\ ever, as showing the effect of the refuge offered by Canada upon slave holding
ir.the South. For more than thirty years before the Civil War came, the slave-
""£*■""* I '.olders had protested against the British policy of protecting Negroes in Canada
against their efforts to return them to slavery. The Canadian census figures
,,are quite unreliable with regard to this class of people. Rev. S. R. Ward,
himself a fugitive, says that the enumerators ignored the portion of their report
designating colour.3 Thus we are left to draw some conclusion from the many
Refugees from slavery in Canada West, report to the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, by S. G. Howe, Boston, 1864. / i 2Howe, Freedmen's Inquiry Commission report, p. 17.
3Ward, S. R., Autobiography of a fugitive negro, London, 1855, p. 154.